ALTOONA, Pa. -- Mike Yurcich is an extremely confident guy. You know how you can tell that when talking to some people, just in the way they speak, the assuredness and self confidence they convey.
Like they have all the right answers. And they know it.
Does Yurcich have all the right answers when it comes to Penn State's offense? Can the guy who was brought in last year to turn the Nittany Lions into an offensive juggernaut actually do just that?
Because we didn't see anything close to it this season.
And make no mistake about it, all of that falls back on Yurcich. He's the head coach of the offense, it's his system, he's got the great track record and he's responsible for all of it.
How does Yurcich think he did this season?
"Not good enough," the offensive coordinator said Friday. "A lot of room to improve.
"We didn't execute at the level that we need to execute at. So I take the blame. It solely falls on my shoulders. And we'll get better, I'll get better. We're going to work really hard to get us to a championship level offense, and we're not there yet. We're gonna continue to strive and drive and do all the things necessary to compete and get to that level. Or I'm gonna die trying."
Penn State ranks 81st in the nation in total offense. That's hard to fathom -- like impossibly hard to fathom -- when you've got a third-year starting quarterback and one of the best receivers in the nation.
Yurcich enjoyed a lot of success as offensive coordinator at Oklahoma State and Texas, both members of the Big 12, where they just don't put a great deal of emphasis on playing great defense.
After what we saw this season -- Yurcich's first as a coordinator in the Big Ten -- the question of whether his offense will work in this defensive-minded league has to be brought up.
So, I brought it up Friday and asked Yurcich exactly that: "I want to be blunt here, is your system designed to work in the Big Ten?"
"Yeah, I think there's no question it can work in the Big Ten. It can work in any conference that we play," Yurcich replied.
OK, so how can it work? What are the areas Yurcich and Penn State will have to focus on moving forward for this offense to live up to its potential to compete better in the Big Ten?
Here are the three biggest factors:
1. RUN THE BALL BETTER
This is the Captain Obvious answer. Because we all know Penn State's offense cannot reach its goals if it cannot fix the putrid running game we saw this season.
The Lions are 118th in the nation in rushing offense, out of 130 teams, and average just 107.6 yards per game.
The 2014 team had the worst rushing attack in program history (with stats dating back to 1950), as it averaged only 101.9 yards per game. So, this is the second-worst running game Penn State has ever had.
It is easy to place all the blame on the offensive line or coach Phil Trautwien and simply say, "Those guys aren't doing their jobs." But that may not necessarily be the entire solution when it comes to the running game woes.
The biggest issues, from my perspective, are scheme and toughness. Put another way, Penn State needs to have an identity that, no matter what, it will be committed to becoming a hard-nosed running team.
But that's easier said than done when you're playing a finesse offensive scheme, which is really what the Lions are playing in this pass-happy Yurcich system.
"At the end of the day, we got to continue to be more physical, tough-minded and really just focus on football, the basic rules," Yurcich said.
"You got to have that identity," he added, "and we tried to establish that identity. We wanted to come downhill at you, and we wanted to get under center at times, and we wanted to be physical."
When I ask if Yurcich's system is cut out for the Big Ten, all of this is what I'm talking about. Because he cut his teeth at the major college level in the Big 12, so he learned how to exploit things in the passing and running games against weaker, less physical defenses.
Just because certain schemes and plays worked in that other league doesn't mean they will work in the Big Ten, and we saw that play out this season.
2. CHANGE THE MINDSET UP FRONT
This is an extension of No. 1, and it MUST be done in order to establish the kind of identity the offense needs.
This is a passing offense. The mindset of the linemen is to pass block, to hold their ground, to keep defenders from getting to the quarterback.
The linemen need to have the mentality that they're going to line up and knock the defenders on their a**.
They need be more physical, tougher and have the kind of mindset where they are going to dominate in the trenches. Wisconsin and Iowa go into games with that mindset because it's what their programs are built on.
I've mentioned this before, but I grew up as a huge Miami Dolphins fan, watching Dan Marino tear apart defenses through the air. But those Dolphins teams were always awful at running the ball, because so much emphasis was placed on the passing game. That shaped my theory on offensive linemen that if they spend so much time focusing on the finesse component of pass blocking, that it's tough for them to be able to flip the switch when they need to become more physical in run blocking.
I'm oversimplifying things here to a degree, but ultimately, that issue seems to be one of the biggest problems facing this Penn State run game. The linemen don't have to be aggressive on every play, so when you really need them to knock dudes backwards, they're just not good enough at it.
3. FINDING MIDDLE GROUND
Penn State had an all-or-nothing kind of offense this season. James Franklin wants a lot of explosive plays, and those can be very big factors when it comes to winning.
But the philosophy of the explosive play stuff needs tweaking.
Once teams figured out Penn State's offense and started keeping everything in front of the defenders, it made getting explosive plays more difficult. And since the Lions couldn't run the ball, well, that compounded problems.
Penn State really struggled capitalizing in the middle of the field, and too many plays were either deep or short throws.
The tight ends combined to catch only 42 passes this season. That's actually pretty ridiculous, when you consider the Lions couldn't run the ball. Why weren't there more throws to tight ends on checkdowns?
The running backs combined for only 43 catches. Again, if those guys couldn't run the ball, why not get it to them in space and let them try and do damage?
None of that makes sense. When we criticize Yurcich -- and there's plenty to criticize him for -- you just have to wonder why on earth he wasn't able to come up with ways to get playmakers the ball ball in space over the middle of the field.
Penn State is 77th in the nation in passing yards per completion at only 11.93 yards. That's pretty terrible for a team that loves explosive plays, but just goes to show how the passing game had to be an extension of the running game with short throws.
One of Yurcich's huge failures was being unable to find a way to keep moving the chains with a bunch of intermediate passes. Those don't take a lot of time to develop, and with Sean Clifford's experience, you'd think he'd be able to make those kinds of throws on a consistent basis.
Along with figuring out the running game next season, Yurcich is going to have to find a way to get guys open over the middle and let them take off for yards after the catch.